Posts tagged freed blacks

Sometimes—well, probably a lot of times—our research veers off into an unexpected direction. Usually its because we come across a person or a circumstance that is of interest. My 3rd great-grandfather, Perry Simpson, married a woman named Margaret Fleet. I found her family quite interesting, even though she technically is not a blood relative. After […]

There is a good probability that many of us researching our African-American lines will find at least one line that was freed before 1865. In 1860, there were over 400,000 freed blacks in the U.S.. I like this map from the Schomburg migrations website: Although Northern cities like Philadelphia and Boston had large black populations, […]

I am in a state of genealogic shock. My ancestor Martha Simpson was the wife of Levi Prather. I’ve been working hard in past years trying to unravel the complicated slave relationships in the Prather family of Montgomery County, Maryland. Finding Levi’s slaveowner was hard work, so I hadn’t focused much on Martha yet. Just recently, I’d started […]

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I blog, teach, write and lecture about family history research and it's just as rewarding today as it was when I began 18 years ago. This lifelong quest has helped me to better know my past and I've taken back--reclaimed- my kin and some of that lost memory.

Favorite Family History Quotes

"Call it a clan, call it a network, all it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one"- Jane Howard

"Friends are God's apologies for relations."-Hugh Kingsmill

"No matter what you've done for yourself or for humanity, if you can't look back on having given love and attention to your own family, what have you really accomplished?"-Elbert Hubbard

"Families are like fudge; mostly sweet with a few nuts."-Unknown

"If you can't get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you might as well make it dance!"-Unknown

"Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city;)"-George Burns

"Where does the family start? It starts with a young man falling in love with a girl. No superior alternative has yet been found."-Winston Churchill

"The great gift of family life is to be intimately acquainted with people you might never ever introduce yourself to had life not done it for you."-Kendall Hailey

"If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all the generations of your ancestors. All of them are alive in this moment. Each is present in your body. You are the continuation of each of these people."-Thich Nhat Hanh